1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical filter and its applications to a wavelength discrimination apparatus for varying transmission central wavelength at high speed in a optical communication system, to a reference wavelength light generation apparatus for generating a single mode continuous wave light of a reference wavelength based on reference wavelength grids in a high density wavelength division multiplexing network system, and to an optical packet generation apparatus for generating a time series of monochromatic pulse lights of respective wavelengths over a wide bandwidth in an optical network system that utilizes lights of different wavelengths for different channels.
2. Description of the Background Art
There has been a proposition of a wavelength division multiplexing type transmission system for transmitting a large capacity of signals using lights of different wavelengths. In such a system, it is said that there is a need for a technique to discriminate and monitor each wavelength. A typical conventional technique for wavelength discrimination has been one that utilizes reflection by a grating mirror, which is capable of discriminating each wavelength at high resolution (the minimum resolution currently available being about 0.1 nm). depending on an incident angle with respect to the grating, so that it is widely used for measurement as an optical spectrum analyzer. Also, as a wavelength discrimination apparatus with even higher resolution, there is an apparatus using the Michelson interferometer which is commercially available.
These two conventional apparatuses are suitable for a wavelength discrimination apparatus for measurement purpose, but they have sizes that are too large for their use as a component having a function for discriminating and monitoring wavelengths in a system, and there has been a need for a wavelength discrimination apparatus in a more compact size. As a scheme that can meet this requirement, there has been a proposition of a scheme (rotary tunable optical filter) in which transmission central wavelength can be made tunable by rotating a dielectric multi-layer filter.
However, this scheme has drawbacks in that the polarization dependency of the transmission efficiency becomes stronger as the incident angle becomes larger and the operable wavelength range is limited by the incident angles. In order to resolve these drawbacks, there has been a proposition of a linear optical filter in which the central wavelength varies along a straight line. When this linear optical filter is used, the central wavelength can be selected according to a position at which the optical beam passes. In addition, in this linear optical filter, there is no change in the incident angle even when the transmission wavelength is changed so that there is hardly any polarization dependency.
Also, in these optical filters, in order to realize the high speed wavelength variation, there is a need to provide a high speed driving mechanism. In this regard, the rotation mechanism basically has a high speed characteristic, but the rotary tunable optical filter requires a rotation of a disk plate so that it is difficult to realize a balance in rotation so that the rotation speed is severely limited.
On the other hand, in the case of the linear optical filter, there is a need for a large amplitude high speed shuttle motion mechanism in order to realize a wide wavelength variation capability at the same time. This requirement quantitatively amounts to the acceleration of 4.times.10.sup.4 m/s.sup.2 in the case of realizing the shuttle motion with an amplitude of 10 cm and a frequency of 100 Hz, for example, and the realization of this acceleration by the currently available technology would call for a gigantic actuator.
Now, in the wavelength division multiplexing network system, it is important to stabilize a reference wavelength light source with respect to reference wavelength grids calibrated to absolute wavelengths. Conventionally, a Distributed Feed-Back Laser Diode (DFB-LD) capable of realizing a wavelength controllable single mode oscillation has been proposed as the reference wavelength light source, and a method utilizing a monochrometer as shown in FIG. 1 has been proposed as a method for stabilizing the reference wavelength of this DFB-LD.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional monochrometer in which a desired spectrum is obtained at a diffraction grating 4 on a rotation stage 8 from a light source in a form of a photo-diode (PD) 1 through a slit 2 and a mirror 3, and a collimated beams are obtained by a mirror 5, a slit 6 and a lens 7 and outputted to an optical fiber 9. Namely, the monochrometer has a wavelength discrimination function of a high absolute precision, where the reference wavelength light can be obtained by setting the monochrometer to the specified wavelength and controlling the laser oscillation wavelength such that the intensity of a laser beam to be discriminated becomes maximum.
However, in the apparatus for stabilizing the reference wavelength using the monochrometer as shown in FIG. 1 requires an optical system with a long optical beam path because its wavelength discrimination function utilizes the wavelength dependency of the diffraction angle by the grating, so that the apparatus becomes large.
In addition, in order to secure the wavelength stabilization, there is a need to make the optical system mechanically strong, and for this reason it is necessary to provide a frame with a very high rigidity.
Also, at a time of controlling the oscillation wavelength, it is customary to take a difference between two wavelengths and provide a feed-back so as to nullify this difference, but it is difficult to take the difference between peaks of the spectrum so that the oscillation wavelength is usually modulated at a low frequency (5 to 10 KHz) in a vicinity of the specified wavelength. However, this modulation will be superposed a intensity modulation component and this intensity modulation may cause some trouble due to noise at a time of clock extraction or the like in the transmission system.
Note that, by rotating the diffraction grating at high speed in the monochrometer described above, it is possible to construct a sample servo type wavelength control apparatus for generating good continuous monochromatic lights without wavelength modulation, but such an apparatus has a problem in that the sample servo may not function properly as there arises a limit in making the sampling period smaller because the diffraction grating is associated with a severe limitation on the number of rotations unlike the case of disk.
Furthermore, the diffraction grating monochrometer has been widely used for the purpose of carrying out the wavelength spectrum analysis which is the basic technique of the optical measurement. In this case, the specific wavelength is discriminated by diffracting only a wavelength that satisfies the Bragg condition, and the wavelength to be discriminated is selected by rotating the diffraction grating. Here, a correspondence between the wavelength and the rotation angle is defined uniquely so that the high precision measurement becomes possible by accurately controlling the rotation angle. However, it requires a long optical beam path in order to obtain the high resolution and therefore it is difficult to form a module suitable for incorporation into a system, so that its applicability has been limited.
Now, the conventional optical packet generation apparatus generates optical packets using a wavelength switch based on AOTF (Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter). Note that, throughout the present specification, the optical packets refers to time series monochromatic pulse lights with wavelengths differing at a constant time interval.
This AOTF operates as a narrow bandwidth wavelength selection switch by utilizing surface elastic waves on an electro-optic crystal (such as LiNbO.sub.3) as diffraction grating, and is capable of switching wavelength at high speed. The switching speed is as fast as 10 .mu.s or less because it is the electric switching. For example, it has been demonstrated that the switching from 1560 nm to 1552 nm in 6 .mu.s is possible by optimizing the control system of AOTF (see M. Misono et al., "High-speed wavelength switching and stabilization of an acoutooptic tunable filter for WDM network in broadcasting stations", IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett., Vol. 4, pp. 572-574, 1996; and H. Hermann et al., "Low-Loss Tunable Integrated Acoustooptical Wavelength Filter in LiNbO.sub.3 with Strong Sidelobe Suppression", IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 120-122, January 1998).
The wavelength selection function of AOTF utilizes the wavelength dependency of the diffraction grating. For this reason, there arises a limit to a wavelength at which the diffracted light can be coupled to the optical fiber again, so that the operable wavelength bandwidth is limited. This range is currently about 10 nm.
On the other hand, the large scale network system containing a CATV broadcast system or the like requires supply of optical packets by switching wavelengths over a wide bandwidth. The actual required wavelength bandwidth depends on the individual system but over 100 nm is desired in general. Hence the bandwidth of the currently available AOTF has been insufficient for this purpose.